We slept the first night at Velletri, and were stopt the next morning at Cisterna with the story of a postillion who had been murdered the night before, in crossing the Pontine Marshes. The passenger within the carriage had escaped with the loss of a considerable sum of money, but the poor postillion, perhaps because he had not stopt immediately when ordered, or perhaps without any preceding salutation, had three bullets in his body. The horse on which he rode was also killed. The bystanders recommended us to take a guard, and our vetturino was very eager to persuade us to do so, but we reflected that there could be no danger in broad daylight, when the whole country was alarmed, and when besides, the robbers had plenty of money; and we proceeded without one. The body of the postillion was lying on the road, whence it seems that it could not be moved, till the appointed officer had been to examine it. The traveller had certainly been very imprudent in crossing the marshes without a guard in the dark, especially as he was known to carry money; and perhaps still more so to stop and sup, as he did, at a miserable little inn on the way. We stopt (but in the day) at the same place, and I could not help reflecting that I was perhaps in the very room where the robbery of the night before had been planned, and every thing prepared for its execution. The air across these marshes is delightfully soft and pleasant, but I felt no more disposition to sleep than I always do, when after early rising, I am travelling through a flat country. The Frenchman however, was determined we should not sleep, and by the help of talking, and a bottle of vinaigre des quatre voleurs, he gained his point as to those within the carriage, but the Englishmen in the cabriolet slept, and felt no inconvenience. I have met them several times at Naples, and it seems one of them has had something of an ague, but not immediately after the journey. The scenery for the greatest part of the way across these celebrated marshes is very pleasant; it is more like travelling through the New Forest, than across Romney Marsh; and the distant mountains present a feature of beauty which neither of these possesses. A brisk, transparent stream ran sometimes on one side of us, sometimes on the other, and sometimes bounded both sides of the road. The wild vine clambered over the tops of the trees, and hung in graceful festoons from branch to branch. Maize seemed the chief object of cultivation, and the plants looked remarkably strong and healthy. We stopped for the night at Terracina, a very picturesque situation. The inn is on the shore, together with the customhouse, and a few other buildings, while the city is on a hill just by. I ran up to see the remains of a temple, which are now built up in the walls of the cathedral. They consist of two fusts of Corinthian columns, and a portion of wall, with an ornamented fascia; all raised over a high continued basement. The cathedral also exhibits internally some detached columns, and other fragments of antiquity. There are also remains of Cyclopean walls, but nothing of much consequence. On a much higher and bolder eminence are the walls of the ancient Anxur, but this I had no time to visit. About Terracina we first meet with myrtles, and the vegetation assumes a different character, indicative of a warmer climate. This arises partly from the change of soil, from the volcanic deposits of the neighbourhood of Rome, to a limestone rock; and partly perhaps from our proximity to the sea, as well as from the more southern latitude. Our vetturino had engaged to set off at two o’clock in the morning, but as he had fixed the same time the night before, and was not himself ready till past four, I concluded that the same thing would happen again. After we had separated, the Italian sent down a private message that he would not set off before daybreak. The next morning, when at a little after four we were all ready to depart, the vetturino declared that in consequence of this delay, he should be a day later at Naples, and that he would not set off at all, unless we would agree to pay; not only our own expenses, but his and his horses for the additional night. To this the Italian, who had with some difficulty been brought to confess the message, would not agree, and of course none of the other passengers would undertake it. On the contrary, I assured him that far from paying any thing additional, I would not even pay him the remainder of my agreement, unless he would so far fulfil his part, as to take me to Naples in four days at the latest. The terms of our agreement were that he should do it in three days and a half. At last, finding the case hopeless, he put to, but it was past five before we left Terracina. We had another quarrel at the Torre del Epitaffio, where one of the police-officers insisted on putting a great water-melon into the cabriolet, which rolling against the legs of the passengers, would have been no pleasant companion. They expostulated, moderately at first, then angrily, and at last tossed out the melon, which falling on the hard road was broken to pieces. A great storm ensued, but it had no consequences. On our first entering the Neapolitan territory, the road is delightful, coasting the foot of the calcareous mountains of the Volsci. On the right, we have sometimes the sea, sometimes a varied valley, from which the projecting parts of the coast rise in detached points, and appear almost to form a chain of islands. The gardens, filled with large orange-trees, growing in all their native beauty of form, constitute a striking feature in the approach to Fondi. At that city, the Neapolitan custom-house detained us more than two hours. The next place is Itri, a very picturesque town, where there are Cyclopean walls. In approaching to Mola di Gaeta, the Sepulchre of Cicero is pointed out to us; a frustum of a cone of rubble-work rises on a square basement, which has been faced with large squared stones. The original summit has been destroyed, and a circular tower of the middle ages occupies its place; unfortunately, the evidence is not entirely satisfactory as to the purpose of its erection, yet the death of the illustrious Roman must have taken place in the neighbourhood, and may have occurred on this very spot.
We did not get to Mola di Gaeta till nearly four o’clock. Here again was a quarrel, the vetturino declaring that his mules must rest at least three hours, and that since we insisted on going to Naples the next day, we must travel all night. It was in vain to argue, he was much more obstinate than his mules, but fortunately he wanted a little sleep himself, and we stopt for a few hours at Santa Agata de’ Goti. At Capua he found that his mules only required an hour and a half, when I should have been well pleased to have stayed three hours, in which case I might have visited old Capua. In the modern city there is little except a few columns in the cathedral, of granite, cipollino, and bigio antico, which are hardly sufficient to interest a man who has just left Rome. From Capua the country appears covered with a continued grove of small poplars, over which the vines climb luxuriantly; and below, wheat and Indian corn are cultivated. I was on the watch for Vesuvius; the weather was hazy, but I distinguished it a little before our arrival at Capua crested with a slender column of smoke, and as we approached Naples, we caught occasional glimpses of it tipped with red, and shewing now and then a small eruption. We had to stop at three custom-houses, but our vetturino would not take us to our inns, which is the usual practice, but drove directly to his own stopping place, and after all, had the impudence to demand a buona mano. I have engaged a room at an inn called the Speranzella, for three carlines a day, a carline being worth about fourpence halfpenny. The master is a Milanese, and the head waiter a Tuscan, and both thank God that they are not Neapolitans. The Lazzaroni wanted two piastres (or dollars) for carrying my trunk, but were contented with half of one, knowing then that they had been paid twice as much as they ought to have had.
The architecture of the palaces at Naples does not call for any particular remarks. It is true that they have large parts, and frequently exhibit a fine unbroken mass, which always has a magnificent effect; but the proportions are seldom very good, and the details almost always bad. These observations apply to the royal palace as well as to those of individuals. It stands in a square, and presents on the principal floor a continued range of twenty-one windows, on an unbroken front of 520 palms, or about 447 English feet; the height is 110 palms, or 94 feet. In all this the design is perfectly simple, except a little disarrangement in the centre, which is a defect of no great importance. Such an extent must have a noble effect. The architect was Domenico Fontana, and he opened the lower part into an arcade; but “in order to strengthen the building,” says Romanelli, “the alternate arches have since been filled up.” Whatever was the motive, the beauty of the building has suffered greatly.
Attached to the palace is the great Theatre of San Carlo. Some degree of caprice seems allowable in the architecture of a modern theatre, at least it is usually found there, partly perhaps on account of the difficulty of adapting the usual arrangements to such a purpose. The front of the present building consists of an arcade below, and small columns above, with a large pier at each angle, and a very obtusely triangular summit. We may perhaps allow some merit to the general idea, but the faults are so numerous, that if I were to enumerate them, you would be at a loss to conceive how it could have any beauty. The Castello Nuovo was the residence of the kings of Naples, and is now connected with the palace, in order to form a refuge to the sovereign in case of any public disturbance. A triumphal arch within the first line of fortifications is deserving of attention, not so much for its own merit, which however is not contemptible, as for the history of the art. It was built by Pietro Martino, a Milanese, under Alphonsus the First, who died in 1458. I do not find the name of this architect in Milizia, but we may presume him contemporary with L. B. Alberti, who was born in 1398. The design is completely in the style called here cinque cento, and it may be considered as one of the largest and most elaborate productions of that period, as well as one of the earliest. It abounds with sculpture, some of which is very good, but as a piece of architecture, the whole is not pleasing.
The Palace of the Studii is a fine building, and contains a noble collection of statues, inferior only to those of the Capitol and Vatican, and perhaps of the gallery at Florence. In painting, it yields to Rome, Florence, and Bologna; but in bronzes, and Etruscan vases, exceeds every other. These latter form of themselves a very extensive, and very intricate object of study; connected with the mythology, and anecdote-history of the ancients. I have no intention to enter into so difficult a subject, but shall content myself with admiring the beauty of the forms, and the graceful attitudes and actions of the figures. These merits hardly ever fail, though the drawing of particular parts is often defective. Attached to the Studio there is a library, and I believe it is a good one, but not so easy of access as most of the continental libraries, where you merely walk in, and by a simple application to the librarian, obtain any book you may want. A large collection of architectural fragments is exposed in one of the courts, a considerable portion of which came from Pozzuoli. I was desirous of making a few sketches, in order to compare them with what I had met elsewhere, but an attendant was sent to tell me that no drawings could be made there without permission of the director. To him therefore I applied, and his answer was, “If you apply to your minister, and obtain an order from the government, as you did with respect to Pompei, I must give you permission.”
After so long a forbearance I must claim the privilege of taking you a round among the churches, although after enjoying at Rome the splendid display from the time of Constantine to the present day, those of Naples appear rather flat and insipid. To begin with the cathedral. You are told that it was built by Constantine on the ruins of the temple of Apollo; sounding words, not entirely without meaning, since if not true of the main body of the cathedral itself, it may be partly so, with reference to a small church of Santa Restituta, opening into the cathedral, and forming a sort of large side chapel. The body of the present edifice was begun under Charles the First, of Anjou, in 1280, and a building was completed by Charles the Second in 1299. This is said by Vasi to have been ruined by an earthquake in 1456, and restored in the Gothic style by Nicola Pisano, under Alphonsus the First. Now we do not know precisely the date either of the birth, or death of this artist, but we find Giovanni da Pisa, who was probably his son, employed in the Campo Santo at Pisa in 1278, and Nicola was probably at that time either dead, or advanced in years. It is then possible that he was employed at Naples in the original edifice, but not in this restoration. Milizia attributes the front to a pupil of Nicola, named Maglione, but even this can only apply to the primitive erection, and not to any restoration under Alphonso. The front was erected in 1407, (therefore before the earthquake) but restored in 1788. As it is still Gothic, I suppose this restoration to have consisted merely in bungling repairs of the old work. We may consider, therefore, the original design as far as we can trace it, as an example of the architecture of the beginning of the fifteenth century at Naples, a period at which Brunelleschi was flourishing at Florence, and the Gothic forms were already discarded. I conceive it to have offered the sort of arrangement exhibited in the following sketch, with a large gable in the middle, perhaps formed on an equilateral triangle, and a smaller and more acute one on each side.
The upper gable is now truncated, and the spaces between the smaller ones and the building, are walled up, forming an uglier front than you can well conceive, out of what really appears to have been a pleasing composition. The cathedral at Mantua seems to have been an edifice of the same style.
The inside is almost all modernized; two or three of the side chapels alone retaining traces of the time of their erection. It is said to contain 110 columns of Egyptian granite and African breccia, belonging to the ancient temple of Apollo; but if so, they must have been very small, less than eighteen inches in diameter, and they are now all covered with stucco. (You see the English churchwardens have authority for what they do.) I rather, however, doubt the fact. On the left hand is the ancient church of Santa Restituta; here are indubitably many ancient shafts. They are all small, but vary both in size, and material. The capitals are in bad condition; one or two may have been good, but in general they are of poor design, and bad workmanship; few of them fit the shafts; large moulded blocks are placed above the capitals to receive the springing of the arches. These are now pointed, but were at first probably semicircular. The Gothic work patched upon the original building has been rococoed,[[21]] and the whole is perfectly devoid of architectural effect.
Opposite the church of Santa Restituta is the Chapel of San Gennaro, which has the form of a Greek cross, and is perhaps more splendid than beautiful, although not without some architectural merit. Two elegant columns of verde antico adorn the entrance. The whole is rich, with various marbles, and with several showy altars, and forms in itself a little church. On a feast-day, fifty-three busts of the saints, protectors of Naples, are exhibited to the devotion of the people in this chapel; thirty-five of these are of silver, the remaining eighteen of bronze. Behind the principal altar there is a little cupboard in the wall, closed with doors of silver, where I am told that the skull of St. Januarius is preserved, and the famous blood, which forms the standing miracle of the city. There are in this chapel some admirable productions of Domenichino; and Guido was also engaged to employ here his pencil, but the jealousy of the Neapolitan artists prompted them to poison the former, and the latter was frightened away by their machinations and conspiracies against him. In the treasury behind, you are shewn a multitude of relicks, and rich presents, but nothing which has made much impression on my memory. There are some Gothic tombs in this church, and a fine Gothic pulpit and canopy. In this part of Naples we find several buildings of the renaissance, (I wish I could express this neatly in English), and many little chapels and altars in the churches of that style, which is everywhere very distinctly marked. The relief of the different parts is small, the entablature frequently breaks round the pilaster, which thus becomes a mere decoration; the ornaments are light and elegant, and the execution generally beautiful; the character is rather Greek than Roman, though the plans are such as the purity of Greek taste would not have tolerated. In the edifices of that period there is always something to be admired, yet it must be confessed that it is a mode of art which succeeds better in small compositions than in large structures; and the former, whether from the abundance of talent among the artists, or from some other circumstance with which I am unacquainted, are almost always good: possessing beautiful proportions, and just feeling.